1520 After navigating through a strait at the southern end of South America, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Subsequently, the strait is named the Strait of Magellan.
1582 In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence.
1660 At Gresham College, located at Barnard’s Inn Hall in central London, 12 men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray, founded what is later known as the Royal Society.
1757 William Blake (born), English poet and painter (died 1827)
1805 John Stephens (born), American archeologist (died 1852)
1811 Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.
1814 The Times in London is for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signaling the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience.
1820 Friedrich Engels (born), German philosopher (died 1895)
1853 Helen Magill White (born), American first woman to earn a Ph.D. (died 1944)
1859 Washington Irving (died), American author and historian (born 1783)
1866 Henry Bacon (born), American architect, designed the Lincoln Memorial (died 1924)
1895 The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago’s Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.
1905 Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin as a political party with the main aim of establishing a dual monarchy in Ireland.
1907 In Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer opens his first movie theater.
1909 Sergei Rachmaninoff makes the debut performance of his Piano Concerto No. 3, considered to be one of the most technically challenging piano concertos in the standard classical repertoire.
1919 Lady Astor is elected as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She is the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. (Countess Markievicz, the first to be elected, refused to sit.)
1943 Randy Newman (born), American singer-songwriter, pianist, and composer
1949 Paul Shaffer (born), Canadian-American actor and orchestra leader
1953 Frank Olson (died), American biologist (born 1910)
1954 Enrico Fermi (died), Italian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1901)
1962 Jon Stewart (born), American comedian, actor, and television host
1967 Anna Nicole Smith (born), American model and actress (died 2007)
EO Smith
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